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Focuses on the issue of force by the police and points out differences between police brutality and police torture. Discusses the factors which can affect the levels of police brutality.

This paper seeks to critique the Winfree and Taylor report on rural, small town, and metropolitan police in New Zealand.

Compares and contrasts the conclusions to some earlier findings of Jaeger in her research on increasing the diversity of the New Zealand police. The question asked is: “Can universal research methodology on classical policing and community policing be applied carte blanche to organizational studies in New Zealand without ‘local’ input?”.

Jaeger's research, through in‐depth interviews of twenty ethnic police officers, suggested possible alternative conclusions that were not apparent when Winfree and Taylor, reporting from a distance, applied detailed statistical analysis to a 1996 dataset. The paper suggests that a combination of the two approaches might lead to a more complete and truthful representation of the reality.

Critiques an earlier report on the police in New Zealand published in Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management.

The delivery of neighbourhood policing across England and Wales relies heavily on the increasing number of police community support officers (PCSOs). This study focused on the residents' perceptions of PCSOs and on their views of the impact these officers had on the level of crime and antisocial behaviour (ASB) within the Halton Borough Council area, a unitary local authority in the northwest of England. It used a self‐completion postal questionnaire, which was distributed to 2,100 randomly selected, residential addresses across the borough. In the main, the residents who responded did not know their local PCSO, and felt that locally, crime was not as big an issue as that identified in the British Crime Survey (BCS) 2007‐08 (Kershaw et al, 2008:10). They did feel, however, that six of the seven quality of life issues surveyed by this local survey were worse in Halton than the national picture portrayed by the BCS. The residents did not know that PCSOs impacted on the issues concerning them locally, or perceived that they did not. Despite these perceptions, the vast majority of the respondents would welcome greater numbers of PCSOs.

This article describes three studies on several aspects of police custody in The Netherlands. The first study shows that the quality of accommodation, facilities, interaction and differential treatment are substandard in Dutch police stations, but dependent of the organisational size, degree of specialisation of the custodial task and extensiveness of duty‐prescriptions and registration. Detention circumstances in police stations are worse than in remand centres. The second study reveals high prevalence rates of symptoms of depression and somatisation (SCL‐90) among police custody detainees. Police custody detainees' symptom levels are higher than those in a jail population and a male general population. The third study addresses the prevalence rates of suicides and other deaths in Dutch police custody in the period 1983‐1993 and shows that the mortality rate, suicide rate and deadly poisoning rate are higher than those in remand centres and the general population. The findings of the three studies demonstrate that police custody is an area of concern.

The touted benefits of inter-governmental contracting are cost savings and simplicity when compared to shared service agreements. Some managers and public officials resist contracting given the assumption that there may be a drop-off in service quality. However, inter-governmental contracting introduces market forces which theoretically would improve performance while keeping costs per unit of output low (Boyne, 1998). This paperexamines municipal police contracting in the State of New Jersey, the purpose of which is to determine if there are statistically significant differences in non-violent crime rates among municipalities that maintain their own police force versus those that contract with neighboring municipalities for police services. Contracting costs are also explored. While summary statistics indicate lower non-violent crime rates among municipalities that maintain their own police force compared to those that contract for police services, multiple regression results indicate that contracting does not predict higher non-violent crime rates at the .05 level. Therefore, contracting for police services should be explored as an alternative municipal policing model.

The recommendations of the recent Crime and Disorder Act Review will shape the evolution of neighbourhood policing. This article explains how neighbourhood policing in the UK has developed, including milestones such as the National Reassurance Policing Programme. Now, as neighbourhood policing is rolled out more widely, there is not one model in use, rather ten principles that forces are expected to apply. Early lessons from the roll out of neighbourhood policing suggest that much has been achieved and that the key to success is effective partnership working, particularly with local governments.

Locally based policing ‐ involving co‐operation with local residents and agencies, is a key requirement of the government's police reform agenda. This article reports the findings of an evaluation of one such initiative that involved residents in determining policing strategy on two urban housing estates. On one estate there were positive outcomes, but there was little change in the other. This appeared to be related to the range of skills possessed by the officers on the two sites.

Suggests that the British police service is experiencing the effects of the “new managerialism” in the public sector. A particular concern has been the system of single‐point entry to the service and its capacity to provide the police with the managers it needs to tackle contemporary issues. Points out that calls for reform have tended to focus on the merits and demerits of an “officer class” solution. Argues that rhetoric about military‐style elites for the police has blocked open discussion about the potential advantages of dual‐or even multiple‐point entry to the service. Examines the debate and counters criticisms surrounding it through comparisons with reforms in Britain′s National Health Service, and also with the Dutch and Japanese police. Argues that direct entry could catalyze change and improvement in the areas of equal opportunities, specialist functional management and reward systems at all levels.

The common survey instrument for police integrity consists of case descriptions that are mainly concerned with corruption. However, the diversity in police criminal acts calls for a revision of this survey instrument. Based on cases of convicted police officers in Norway, this paper aims to propose a new survey.

Content analysis of 57 court cases in Norway was carried out.

Rather than focusing mainly on police corruption, a diversity of police criminal acts was identified in the content analysis.

Court cases in other countries should be analysed to improve the proposed questionnaire in future iterations. Rather than measuring police integrity only in terms of corruption, future empirical studies of police integrity should focus on the variety of police criminal acts found in court cases.

The paper focusses on an empirically based survey instrument.

At present there is little comparative information available regarding campus and municipal police agencies and their personnel. Therefore, the purpose of the present study is to examine the similarities and differences between municipal and campus police agencies with respect to various human resource characteristics and policies. The following research question guided the analysis: how do municipal and campus police agencies compare regarding the following human resource characteristics and policies: the proportion of sworn personnel, gender and race of sworn officers, salaries and benefits, educational requirements, levels of training required, drug testing policies and the extent of collective bargaining/unionization. The database is nationwide in scope. The findings of this study support the general notion that city and campus police departments are similar at least with respect to the human resource characteristics identified. Many campus departments have advanced well beyond the watchman era of campus policing. In a number of human resource areas such as use of civilians, education and training requirements, the campus police have progressed very well based on the comparisons made.